Did a UFO visit Delta? That is precisely what Joan LaForty
is wondering after discovering a very mysterious impression in the ice
on the creek near her home on King Street.

"It's awesome. I've never seen anything like it
before in my life," she said.

The narrow creek flows under a culvert, and widens into
a small pond area in a field behind the LaForty's barn before flowing into
Lower Beverley Lake. A track, about 3 inches wide, forming a perfect circle
approximately 15 feet in diameter has been cut into the ice that is covering
the creek. There are no tracks or marks anywhere else on the ice. There's
nothing inside the circle, and nothing around it. On one side, there is
a small patch of open water where the creek is flowing around the edge
of this mysterious circle mark, otherwise, the entire impression is surrounded
by intact ice. The ice on the surface of the creek is very thin, making
it impossible for any person or animal to have walked on it. On the grassy
slopes that surround the edges of the water the grass is frosted and completely
undisturbed. Joan's husband Jim discovered the mark early on Saturday December
2, about 7:00 a.m. It definitely was not there on Friday evening, so it
must have been made in the night or very early morning.

"It's as if something came down from the sky, landed
here, and left this track in the ice," Joan explained. "Then
it must have taken off again."

Before waking up to find a mark like this so close to
home, Joan would not have believed in UFO's. However, now, she is not so
sure.

I will admit, this is a very peculiar occurrence. As
Joan and I stood there, looking at the mark on the ice, neither of us could
imagine how it could have been created. We agree that there is no obvious
theory to explain its creation. Realistically, no one would have been out
on the creek without Joan, or Jim LaForty knowing about it. The temperature
would have been close to -14 degrees Celsius. There are no other tracks
anywhere around this highly unusual form and it wasn't there the night
before.

So unless any readers out there have an explanation,
it looks like this is one for the X-files.

Comment

From Bob Barnes <bbarnes@fwi.com>
12-20-00
How strange that this story should pop up right now, while I've been reading
and looking into a very similar account outlined in Ray Fowler's 1981book
"Casebook of a UFO Investigator."

On January 10, 1977 in Wakefield, New Hampshire under
blizzard conditions and a temp of 5-degrees F, a farmer found a perfectly
round hole presumably melted through 14 inches of solid ice on his farm
pond. At the bottom of the center of this hole, he could see a black box
roughly 12-inches square laying on the bottom. Subsequent Civil Defense
Geiger counter readings placed radioactivity at 3 roentgens per hour of
gamma radiation! (Usual readings were in the 1000ths of rph.) The place
was overrun by police, investigators, and the curious... the black box
disappeared under mysterious circumstances... the NH governors office
denied the whole thing... and within 24 hours, the entire surface of the
pond had melted, despite single digit temperatures. In subsequent days
the farmer's dog died, a photo appeared in the local newspaper of two
men carrying a heavy object from the pond, and it was discovered that
one of the investigators was working with a German Firm on some sort of
secret assignment. It's an amazing story.